As I was taking this photograph of my autumn harvest, I suddenly realised just how much it sums up the way I strive for life to be and highlights a number of people around me who I’m blessed to have in my life.
The grapes are from our good herbalist friend Bergitte McGovern‘s polytunnel, the Hawthorns picked from the hedgerow surrounding her land, the squashes are sitting on a beautiful pottery plate she made for me some years ago. I try to buy as many of my tinctures as I can from Be who has a fabulous medicinal herb garden and treats her plants with respect and joy!
The apples are a gift brought back from Ireland by visiting friends David and Heather Sharland. Heather is a nurse with over 20 years experience working in Africa as a midwife and health visitor along with fellow herbalist and ethnobotanist, Lucie Bradley who has recently moved to Tanzania, we three are working on a book for women’s groups in East Africa to empower them to learn about natural ways of looking after their health. They are sitting in a bowl made for my husband and I as a wedding gift by fellow herbalist Therese Hickland, owner of Healing Thyme.
The candle in the wooden bowl was a gift from Hilary Storm – another amazing woman who has recently come back to the UK after 7 years living and working in Uganda with a children’s charity there. And the wooden bowl itself was turned for us as a wedding gift by herbalist Tim Entwhistle who is now working towards his PhD in ground breaking research into natural medicine and cancer.
Feeling very autumnally blessed…
And the squashes? Supermarket I’m afraid… I have no poetic stories about them…